What Jesus Expects from Those Who Follow Him

We are working through the Gospels. We’ve been about a year working through it. We’re about halfway through. We’ve been studying the life, the history, the ministry and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Today we’re going to land in Mark chapter eight. So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. If you don’t, no worries, it will be up on the screen. But two quick things before I get there. First thing is I want to remind all the women out there that Women’s Day is this Saturday. Yay excited about it.

And today we extended the early bird registration which gives you a discount until today. Today is the last day. So if you decide to use your phone and register for Women’s Day right now, I won’t even be hurt. I’m happy. So you can do that.

You can do that by registering on our website. Just jumping on the website browardchurch.org. Finding the women’s day information. It’s called through the seasons. The program is amazing.

I’ve been able to listen to a little bit of the planning of it and I’m quite excited about what the women are doing this upcoming Saturday. So again, this Saturday, last day to register, please register. It’s going to be a really great time. You’re not going to want to miss it. The second thing is I wanted to acknowledge people that are maybe new to our community this week and say hello, my name is Tony and I want to share something about our congregation as we begin.

I know that a lot of people are deciding to come out to church for the first time in the New Year and I get that New Year’s resolutions, that’s awesome. But I want to tell you about what you just stepped into in the Broward Church. We attempt in this congregation to build our community under the guidance of the Bible. Now you might wonder what that means, but here’s what it means. It means that we take the book that we’re about to read very seriously.

We take the Scriptures super seriously. We read it, we study it, we learn from it, we even build our hopes on it, we build our futures around it, we allow it to guide our thinking about everything. Money, marriage, children, parenting values, morale, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we say about ourselves that we are a Bible church. And that’s what it means that we want to be built on the foundation of the Scriptures.

But every once in a while you land on a passage of Scripture that challenges the comforts of your own personal worldview. Even as a Christian, that happens. And when you come across a passage like that, no matter how committed you are, all of us, I would say, are tempted to over explain it, to sidestep it, to allegoricalize it. Is that a word? I don’t know. It is now. Over contextualize it. To try to wiggle our way out of it to say this was talking about this context and try to get our way out of it. And so because we know we’re all tempted to do that in this congregation, we make it our goal, when we approach a text like that, instead of sidestepping it, we try to dive deeper into it. And we ask, what does the Bible want me to adjust about my thinking here? Not how does my thinking align with the Bible, because that doesn’t really matter. But but how does God want my thinking to adjust as I approach it? Or how does he want me to change the way I live or change the way I think or change the way I engage with society? And the reason I say all that to you today is because in our walk through the Gospels, we come face to face with one such passage.

A quick confession here: I considered, because it’s New Year’s Day and I imagined there’d be some new folks, I considered saying, let’s just use this passage next week. But I decided that maybe the Holy Spirit was trying to have me speak to those of you who maybe made a New Year’s resolution to get closer to Jesus or to come back to faith to speak to you plainly about what Jesus says. And this is what we’re going to look at today. The text is so deep, it’s a jewel in the Gospels. It’s this, it’s this one idea.

It’s what Jesus expects from those who follow Him. In fact, Mark, chapter eight, verses 34 through 38, is a treasure. If you’re new to this and you could only hear maybe one message out of the book of Mark, this perhaps would be the most important one. Because here in Mark eight, we hear from the lips of Jesus Christ, the standard, the model. Here in this text, we find the way to life, the way to forgiveness, the way to heaven, the way to joy and the way to peace.

We get in this text, the way of Jesus. Again, if you made a New Year’s resolution to get closer to God, this message will teach you how to do it. But here is a quick warning. This is the equivalent of telling you, hey, if you want to work out, working out is about being sore. Do you know what I’m saying?

I’m telling you the hard part first is the point. And so it’s going to be good, but it’s going to be sobering, I would imagine. So let’s read it together and then we’ll dive deeper into it. Mark, chapter eight, verse 34. Then he called the crowd to him, along with his disciples, and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

And whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their souls? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and My Word in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of God or the Son of man will be ashamed of them when he comes in the Father’s glory with his holy angels.

Here’s a quick overview before we get into the meat of this discussion. This section consists of short but I would say pungent sayings which concern one idea, Jesus’s expectation of personal commitment for those who choose to follow him. This is what this is. They reflect similar foundations and vocabulary as we see in other parts of the Gospel. Jesus will repeat this idea in Luke chapter nine and Luke chapter 14 and Matthew chapter ten and Matthew chapter 16 and John chapter twelve I believe also. This is Jesus explaining the fundamentals of discipleship. This in many ways is the Christian ethic. And what you immediately feel as you read this is this is supposed to be a death blow to the man centered, self centeredness of Western living. This is a death blow to the idea of I do what I want whenever I want to do it. This in fact is not an invitation to health, wealth, fulfillment, prosperity, healing, self absorbed, image boasting, trouble free living.

This is an invitation to death, to cross bearing, to obedience. And Mark, chapter eight, verse 34 through 38 is a summary of what Christianity is. Allow me to take some time to draw it out. The text begins by saying this then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples. The reference to the crowd is sudden and also unexpected because a verse later, a verse earlier, Jesus was talking to Peter in a private moment.

But as Mark so often does, he just jumps forward in the future and all of a sudden the crowd is there in Caesarea Philippi. And the crowd is there, why? Why is the crowd there?

Well, I think the crowd plays a vital function in the narrative. And the function is this: by calling the crowd, Jesus is indicating that the conditions for following him are relevant to all people. Let me just share that again because I think it’s so critical. Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said so he’s calling the disciples, which means the apostles, the people who are close to him, and the crowds, the people who were interested in him. He’s calling them together.

And then he declares the first word he uses is whoever. Whoever. This is Jesus reinforcing the idea that this is for all people. This is a prerequisite requirement for all people in all time who want to be Christians. Quick note here disciple and Christians are interchangeable words. Acts chapter eleven, verse 26, if you want to study it on yourself, by yourself. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. That’s what the scripture says. So a Christian is a disciple. So when you read this and Jesus says, whoever wants to be my disciple, you can easily change that word to whoever wants to be a Christian.

Whoever wants to be a Christian. If you want to be a Christian, what do you have to do? Well, you have to believe. Yeah, sure. But also you have to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.

Now, if you began there, if I just said, hey, I had this really great religion for you. It’s a religion of self denial, of cross bearing and of loyal obedience. You might say, why would anybody sign up for that? And I think you would be probably right if you started there because it’s the equivalent of let’s use the workout thing because we’re doing the whole January 1 excited about working out. Lots of workout, subscriptions have been signed, dotted.

People tomorrow are starting so many, I hope that by next week you’re continuing. That’s just a little point. But here we are. Are you ready? So this would be the equivalent of saying, hey, working out is about waking up early, about doing hard labor and being sore the next day.

If I were to say that without any other context, you might not understand why anyone would work out and it’s the same here. Why would anyone give up themselves, carry their cross and follow Jesus? Why would anybody do that? Now, someone might say in a way that would be technically true, because otherwise you go to hell. Now, I guess that’s right.

But it misses kind of the point of Jesus’s ministry. Jesus’s ministry is not about sending people to hell. It’s actually the complete opposite. So it’s important to know that the disciples and the people in the crowd and those of us who are here today, who call ourselves Christians, have chosen to follow Jesus. This was a decision we made.

Now, you might not know why we made it, but I want to explain why we made it. This is not just like you chose to work out because you thought you were going to be healthy, right? You didn’t chose to work out so that you could be sore. You didn’t choose to follow Jesus so you could deny self. You chose to follow Jesus for something bigger than that.

In fact, I would say it this way. We came to grips with a truth that is difficult for most people to admit. If you’re a Christian here this morning, you came to grips with the truth that you are helpless. You’re sitting around a bunch of helpless people, that you need a guide, that you are lost, that you are in need of every type of healing, spiritual healing, physical healing, emotional healing, psychological healing in many ways. That you are sick, that you needed liberation because you were enslaved to your own desires. And so we went in search of something and someone who could help.

And who we found was Jesus. And I guess. Or Jesus found us. Jesus will say it this way in an earlier part of the Book of Mark, it says, it’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

If you’re sick, raise your hand. Like, all of us are sick, right? I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus says, I’m here as a doctor. I’m not here to take care of the people who are healthy.

I’m here as a redeemer for the sinful. And let me just make a clear declaration here. Christianity before you even get to Mark. Chapter eight in the Denial of Self before you even get there. Christianity is for people who know they are in need.

It’s for people who are needy. We have needs that you and I cannot meet on our own. We are broken people. We are poor morally. We are sinful.

We do things we don’t even want to do. As I mentioned before, we’re enslaved to our own desires. We break the promises we make to ourselves. We are captured by our own fantasies. I think in many ways, we care more about things than people.

We’re a wreck, right? There is no good person amongst us. And if you’re a Christian, you come to grips with that. But there’s no one good, not even one. No one who does what’s right, no one who is righteous.

All our tongues mutter lies. Our hands are stained with blood. You know, there’s to go back to the illustration of working out, there becomes a moment when you think to yourself, you know what? My body isn’t taking care of myself the way I wanted it to take care of itself. I’m growing in ways that I don’t want to grow.

And you think to yourself, I want to do something to stop that. And so what happens is you come to grips with that idea before you make the commitment to do the hard thing. It’s the same idea here. No one is a Christian before beginning with, I’m in need, I’m broken, I’m sinful, and I can’t do this on my own. So when I say Christianity is for the needy, what I’m saying is, Christianity is for those who are admitting that they are needy.

In fact, there’s a theme in the Bible, and this is really interesting throughout the ministry of Jesus, where Jesus is going to engage with a bunch of people. Jesus admits that everybody’s messed up, but not everyone will admit that they are messed up, right? And so most people, you know this will pretend that they’re not messed up, that they’re all good. I’m perfect. Jesus uses this great example.

He says that they clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is filthy. That’s what he uses. There’s another illustration that he uses that is even worse. He says they are whitewashed tombs. In other words, they’re beautiful on the outside, but inside is full of dead things.

Most people are whitewashed tombs. Most people. I would say I was and you were. In many ways, we are. We present ourselves better than we are, but inside, we’re a mess.

And in our arrogance, we present a better version of us than actually exists. We’re proud, we’re messed up, but we have smiles on our face like, everything’s okay. How you are doing this? Well, I’m doing great. But inside, I’m a wreck, a slave to the things I can’t get away from.

See, what I’ve discovered is that Christian or not, we’re we’re all broken. None of us live up to the standards we set. We all have vices. We’re all struggling. But if you’re willing to admit it, then Jesus goes, I have something for you.

And so before you get to Mark Eight, you have to understand all of this stuff, right? Anybody who came to Jesus came to him because they were in need. They were able to admit that they were needy people. They were able to say, Look, I have it. I’m really, really messed up.

And so they were like, what is there out there? And Jesus was like, I’m here to rescue you. Jesus gives us an alternative way to live. You’re a broken man or woman. And Jesus says, I got a brand new way.

He teaches us how to be poor in spirit, which means we come before him learning to be humble and bankrupt. He teaches us how to hunger and thirst for what’s right, not for being right, but for what is right. To live in pursuit of values rather than our own comfort, to not get so close to the sin that’s trying to devour us. He teaches us to use our liberty to serve other people, to treat other people with honor and respect, to be meek, to be lowly, to be merciful, to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to store up treasures in an area that cannot be ever destroyed or taken from us. Jesus gives us a new way to live, right?

To learn to trust a heavenly Father, to live wisely, and on and on and on and on and on. You can read the Sermon on the Mount, right? Jesus offers us a way to carry the heavy burdens we couldn’t carry on our own. He offers us a new yoke, a new way of life. And so when Jesus is speaking to the crowds and to the disciples in Mark chapter eight, he’s speaking to people who have already come to grips with this fundamental idea.

One, they are helpless without him. Two, Jesus offers a better way to live. And it’s to those people that Jesus gives the instructions of John of Mark chapter Eight. Then he called the crowds to him and the disciples, the people who were wanting to follow him and he says, if you want to follow me, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. He’s saying to them, you came because of what I had to offer, right? You tasted and you saw that it was sweet. Now make sure you continue to deny yourself. The word here, deny, is often used in the Bible to be disown.

Disown. Another way to look at that word is to refuse to associate with. What he’s saying is, I’m no longer going to associate with the person that I was. That’s what it means. I’m abandoning my own ambitions. I’m abandoning my own agenda.

I’m abandoning my own plan. I disown myself. I don’t want anything to do with that natural, carnal deprived, sinful, selfish soul who messed up my life. I don’t want anything to do with him anymore. That’s denying yourself, right?

I’ve come to grips that you are hope, and self can’t provide hope. So, hey, if you’re going to come to Jesus, you have to deny yourself. You have to deny your desires, your flesh, your lust, all that self. Who I am without Jesus is ugly, is broken, is destroyed. And so what I do is I let go of that so that Christ can become my life, so that I could be crucified with Christ.

And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. You bring yourself under the sovereign rule of Jesus Christ because your way of life was not allowing you to find the things you wanted. See, it’s important that, again, you approach Mark, Chapter Eight with this idea. These people realized they were on the wrong path. They chose Jesus’s path, and then they’re tempted to go back to their path.

And Jesus is like, if you’re going to follow me, you got to get rid of that old self. You know where that thing leads you? It destroys you, it kills you, it murders you. It ruins relationships. Why would you go back to it?

This demand is then reinforced and intensified by saying, the horrifying act of the of the carrying of the cross. It’s a death march. Bearing your cross was not a metaphor for these people. This would evoke pictures of a condemned man going to die who was forced to carry on his back a cross beam upon which he would be nailed and humiliated and executed. If you want to be a Christian, you have to disown your old life, your old loyalties, and then you participate in the death march.

And this is so critical, guys. Who does the killing in this idea of you bearing your cross? You are doing the killing.

People who change are people who decide to change.

People who kill the old self to pursue what is right decide to pursue the old self and do what is right. I read a study by a guy who talked about addiction, and he was talking about just all the different ways where people get out of addiction. And he was just saying how difficult it is to break free of addiction. But something he said that’s universal amongst everybody who breaks from addiction is he says that the people who break out of addiction decide to break out of addiction.

He says lots of treatment, lots of ideas, lots of whatever, but it has to come from inside themselves. No one coerces them to break out of their own addictions. It comes from inside themselves. They decide to change. Death to self is the exact same thing.

You can’t listen to a sermon and be coerced to change. Like, I mean, you’re not going to listen to me and go, oh, yeah, fine, I’m going to get rid of that terrible part of me. No, there has to be something in you that believes you’re worth enough to get rid of the old self that’s killing you and pursue Jesus, that’s providing life. The quotation I read that stood out to me is, he talked about addiction, but I think it’s the same idea with this idea of denial of self. He says it’s a prison where the locks are on the inside. Changes like that, right?

The person Jesus is calling you to be is on the outside of a prison that you have the keys to.

Why is this a prerequisite? You have to capture it because it’s the whole point. If you are at the point where you’re a follower of Jesus, it’s because you’ve already admitted that your way destroys your life. You’ve already admitted that. You’ve already admitted that you’re not capable of being a good person.

You’ve already admitted that you are bankrupt by yourself, that you need something greater to guide you. So you should make sure that you destroy that old self so you never go back to that devilish temptation that wants to ruin you. You execute it. You hang it on a tree and you humiliate it. The call to join the death march to place sorry, the call to join the death march to the place of execution follows appropriately from the idea of self denial, because it’s not just you stop doing something, but you deny yourself altogether. It’s not like I deny myself from chocolates. It’s no, I deny myself completely. Does that make sense?

See, it’s this. Jesus command here, I would say, is the greatest kindness to you living a righteous life. Get rid of your old self because it’s destroying me, destroying you. And then what are you supposed to do? Sorry. Come follow me. Follow my way. Imitate me. Imitate me. Live the way Jesus called you to live.

Don’t be a hearer of the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. Don’t build your life on sinking sand where you hear the words, but don’t put into practice. Be a wise builder who builds his life on the words, who hears the words and does what it says, and so is able to withstand the storms of life. We build our house on the rock. We do what it says. Our pattern is a pattern of obedience to Jesus. And it’s really simple. It’s a really simple concept. If you want to follow Jesus, it’s like going on a road trip.

First thing you’re going to do is you’re going to say goodbye to where you once were, then you’re going to carry the baggage, and then you’re going to go to the new direction you want to go in. That’s what these ideas are saying bye to self, carry your load and then go and follow him. And then the paradox I love this passage. We’re going to go really fast. Verse 35 whoever wants to save their life will lose it. Love that. But whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. If you want life, Jesus says real life, you have to be willing to lose your life, your old life. You give up your old life and then you gain life that is truly life. To cling, I don’t know if I put this on the slide. Yeah. To cling to the things which humanity naturally values most is the way to forfeit true life. That’s the idea. The promise of true life is not attached to the things of the world.

It’s not getting a nicer car not going to help you, it’s not making more money. That’s not true life. The way you truly get life is to abandon the things that the world thinks is true life, and you pursue Jesus Christ. The promise of true life is not attached necessarily to death itself, but to a willingness to sacrifice your old way of living, thinking, loving, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then he poses a rhetorical question.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Anyone? Or what can anyone give in exchange for the soul? The Bible translators here, in order to avoid some confusion, use the term soul. This is actually the same word as the word life earlier on. It should read, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world get forfeit their lives? Or what can anyone give exchange for their lives? But just to make it clear, the Bible translators put the word soul so you would understand it deeper, the deeper meaning of essence, of self. That’s the idea here.

And so the question is simply this what holds the greatest value? Jesus employs some language of commercial life profit, gain, loss, exchange. And Jesus is just trying to make a point that real, authentic life is worth giving anything for. What would it profit you if you gained everything the world offered? You had everything the world ever could offer, but you still had a broken, sinful life? Like you had a lot of money, but your marriage was a wreck.

What would that offer you? It would be terrible. Oh, you know what? I don’t have any peace in my heart, but I live in a mansion. Whoopdedoo, right? Who cares? I’d rather be poor and living in a terrible situation and actually have authentic life than have everything the world has to offer. That’s the point, right? Everything the world has to offer and then have a miserable, miserable, pooh poo life, right?

That’s the idea. What truly matters what truly matters is real life. Real life and a real life that can only come by following the way of Jesus. And developing this thought of supreme value of life to its deeper sense, and I love this idea. This is like my my mind trying to work it, work out the the logic of this thing.

Corresponding to the advantage gain the whole world is the payment which must be forfeited- authentic life. You want to gain the whole world? Give up your life. Who would do that? No one.

So what you do is you give up what the world has to offer in order to gain authentic life. Who would take this? Who would take the trade of being, like, a rich dude with all the fame in the world and having no peace? I don’t know who would take that trade?

And I think that’s the reason. It’s a rhetorical question. Jesus is just saying, wow, why would you ever take it? And yet millions of people, including all of us, have taken that trade, or we have pursued it, right? We pursue money over authentic life or authentic relationships.

Ouch. So these words for Jesus are a reminder for all of us. Verse 38 if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation love Jesus. He would not be a popular American preacher. Gosh.

The Son of man will be ashamed of them when he comes in the Father’s glory with the holy angels. So you get the whole world, you go back on the path of self, and what you do in that moment is because you had already tasted Jesus, you turn your back on Him. Why is he saying you’re ashamed? It’s because these are people that have chosen to follow Jesus.

And then what do they do? They turn away and they pursue their own lives once again. When you do that, you bring shame on Jesus. You say, I don’t need you anymore, Jesus. I’m already a good guy.

I don’t need you anymore. I’ve changed enough. I’ve changed enough. I’ve grown enough. I’ve made enough commitments to you and your gospel.

I’ve given enough. I’ve sacrificed enough. I’ve done all of that idea, and so I’m going to go back to myself, because now I have the tools I need to live my life. And so what you do is you turn back and you go this way, and Jesus says, if you turn your back on me, I’m going to turn my back on you. The sober words there are not a theoretical like idea. This is going to happen. One day Jesus comes back, and in that moment, he will find out, hey, did you live? Did you live right? Or did you turn your back on me?

Did you use the things I offered from my Scriptures to make your Western American life better? Or did you give your whole life to me?

If you do well right, if you don’t give up, if you’re not ashamed of the gospel, then he will have no shame in you. That’s the idea. Remember, these are people who chose to follow Him. And I would say this is the same message for any of you who chose to follow Him. I want to just kind of circle back.

This idea is really important. You followed Him because you were in need. So when it’s hard, you might be tempted to turn your back on Him, to disown Him, to say, this whole Christianity thing is way too hard. So while you’re doing well, take the time to learn to destroy self, to crush self, so that you could find the life Jesus promised. I want to end with a moment of quiet meditation, and then I’ll pray for communion.

Many times in the Bible, Jesus engages with somebody, and there are hundreds of things he could talk to them about. I think about the woman at the well. Jesus sees this woman who is there at the well, and he could talk to her about a thousand things, but he finds the one thing that’s holding her back, the one thing she needs to put to death in order to pursue Him. She finds the one thing. I think about the rich young ruler.

Jesus engages with this man who says, I’ve been following you since I was a baby, since I was a kid, I’ve been doing all these things. And Jesus says, One more thing you lack. Go sell everything you have and then come follow me. Jesus finds the one thing that is a symbol of the whole person. And I would say in your life, there’s probably a one thing.

There’s anger. Some of you are angry, there’s unforgiveness. Some of you have not forgiven. There’s maybe some laziness. There’s some lust, there’s some deceit, there’s some pride.

There’s some desire for wealth and money. There’s greed in your heart. There’s a one thing. All of us have one thing, one thing that illustrates everything. And so what I want you to do is I want you to just take a moment to reflect on that one thing.

What is the one thing? What is the one thing that I’m locked inside of that I have the keys to, that if I could just open up and get out of, I could find the life Jesus has for me. And I want to encourage you to make your own decision. No one’s going to try to force you to do this. It’s just a quiet moment of meditation to make a decision to do something today.

It could be right now, could be a defining moment in your life if you make that decision. See, it’s men who decide that they are worth enough and worth enough that they’re willing to change. And I wonder if you’re worth enough to change. Jesus would say you were because he’s willing to die for you. Get some worth friends and decide to get rid of the vices that are destroying you.

Who cares if you’ve done it over and over again? Who cares if you saved the same promise to yourself ten hundred times? Maybe this time will be the time you change. Choose today. Choose life today.

I’m going to give you three minutes, three minutes of quiet meditation. I’m going to set a little clock here. We’re going to lower the lights. We’re going to give you three minutes just to quietly ponder what’s the one thing I need to give up that maybe is a symbol and illustration of the everything in my life. And then I’ll come back and pray for communion.

Father, as we approach you now, and each of us had a moment of just quiet reflection, considering what it is we needed to give up, what needed to die inside of us. Lord, I pray that you will grant us the strength to crucify the parts of us that are ruining us. Lord, I can’t imagine how challenging it will be for some of us to make those decisions, but I pray that you will give each of us an extra dose of Your spirit as we are approaching as we’re approaching the things we need to change. God, I know there are people in here who are struggling, as I mentioned, with anger and who are struggling with unforgiveness, who are struggling with greed, who are struggling with lust, who are struggling with some other vice or addiction and materialism. And God, I pray you give all of us just a little bit of extra something so that we can be self determined enough to at least call on you to change those things in our lives.

Father, as I was praying, I was thinking about my own life and just the way that I’ve attempted to redefine my own kind of materialism or greed for shrewdness and trying to take one idea and make it more and try to double that and DA DA. And really much of that is just my own greed. And I pray you will grant me, grant me freedom from that, Lord, that I will be more committed and trusting in you than I am in my own abilities. Father, no matter what anybody else is praying for, I just pray that you give them some courage to make a decision. Father it’s hard to change. God, let this time be actually a defining moment in someone’s life, Lord, even if it’s just one of us. God, I pray that that would be the case I mentioned there at the end just about how people who change believe they’re worth enough to change. And, Lord, you taught us that we were worth much more than we even know. By sending us Your Son to die for us, by giving us Jesus, you showed us that we are worth the blood of the innocent.

We are worth the crushing of the part of the Godhead. I don’t claim to even understand all of that, but I know it’s supposed to do in me. It’s supposed to put some gratitude in me and to give me a little bit of belief that I can be better than the way I was. So, Jesus, I pray that as we take communion here today, that we’ll think about that and that will think about the blood and the body broken, that will think about how you gave us everything so that we could have life. And so much every part of us is trying to squander, is trying to sabotage our own goodness. And I pray that we don’t do that, Lord, that you give us freedom from ourselves.

Lord, we just want to say thank you. I pray for anybody here who’s trying to decide to be a follower of you. I pray that what they heard today will be a true indication of what it means to follow you. I pray that you will edit in their minds anything that’s not of you and you replace it with Your word. Lord, I love you.

I praise you. I thank you for this time. Thank you for this commune that we’re about to take, the bread that represents Your body and the juice, and they represent Your blood. We love you, Lord. It’s in Christ Jesus name we pray.

Amen.